MAN LOSES TOOTH THANKS TO LOCAL DENTIST’S POOR RESTORATIVE TREATMENT

• 45-year-old Mr Guy Flower from Whetstone, North London, lost a tooth after his local dentist failed to provide proper restorative treatment
• Mr Flower’s dental problems persisted for years and led to him feeling very low. The dentist also failed to spot and treat decay.
• £7,000 received in compensation

Mr Guy Flower, a 45-year-old marketing manager from Whetstone, North London, has won £7,000 in compensation from his local dentist with the help of specialist dental negligence solicitors, the Dental Law Partnership. The dentist’s failure to provide proper restorative treatment led to Mr Flower unnecessarily losing a tooth and feeling depressed.

Mr Flower had been a patient of Dr Dagmar Davidson’s at Prais Dental Centre in East Finchley, London, since 2002. He always had regular check-ups at the practice but his problems began in 2009 when a filling Dr Davidson had placed kept fracturing.

“When I saw Dr Davidson she said I needed a crown,” Mr Flower explained. “I was starting to feel a little bit concerned because the filling had fractured twice. However, Dr Davidson reassured me that a crown would do the trick.”

So in 2010, Dr Davidson fitted a crown. Mr Flower thought this would be the end of his dental problems, but only a few months later he was back with Dr Davidson because the area surrounding his tooth had swelled up significantly.
“It was so painful, I was having real trouble sleeping and eating solid foods,” Mr Flower recalled. “Dr Davidson prescribed antibiotics and told me to wait and see if the swelling went down, but a few weeks later it was still very sore. She referred me to see a specialist for root canal treatment and to have the crown re-cemented.”

Over the next four years, Mr Flower kept experiencing episodes of pain and went back to see Dr Davidson on multiple occasions. The crown was even replaced at one point, but in November 2014, the crown fell out.

“This time Dr Davidson said the tooth would either need to be extracted or temporarily restored,” Mr Flower explained. “She said there wasn’t much of my tooth left. But I didn’t want to lose it so opted to have it restored.”

Dr Davidson undertook further work on the tooth and re-cemented Mr Flower’s crown. Yet in October 2015 he was referred to hospital to have the tooth extracted.

The xray film taken at the hospital revealed that screws placed by Dr Davidson into Mr Flower’s tooth to support the crown had in fact perforated through the tooth into the bone under Mr Flower’s tooth, causing him significant pain.

Mr Flower contacted the Dental Law Partnership. Analysis of his dental records revealed that Dr Davidson had fitted an ineffective crown and had consistently provided poor restorative treatment. This led to infections, problems with the crown, avoidable treatment, and the eventual unnecessary extraction of his tooth. The dentist had also failed to spot and treat decay that had been clearly visible on X-rays.

“I’d lost all confidence in Dr Davidson,” Mr Flower said. “She was meant to be providing treatment, but actually she was just making my problems worse. It was very upsetting as I’ve always taken pride in my teeth. By the end of the ordeal my never ending dental problems had made me feel really depressed. I’d still have my tooth if it wasn’t for Dr Davidson.”

Tim Armitage of the Dental Law Partnership commented: “What our client went through was completely unnecessary. If the dentist had undertaken the proper treatment in the first place the suffering he experienced could have been avoided. We hope the compensation he receives goes some way towards paying for any additional treatment required.”

The Dental Law Partnership took on Mr Flower’s case in October 2015. The case was successfully settled in March 2017 when the dentist paid £7,000 in an out of court settlement. The dentist did not admit liability.